The whole nation is trying to survive on the cable car; I'm choosing one of three options at ea

Zhang Peng was also communicating privately. Messages were being passed quickly through the crowd, not through communicators, but through eye contact, gestures, and the subtle sounds of lips moving, audible only to those nearby.

"The thing is on him."

"Make your move once we get outside. We can't fight here."

"What if he's very strong?"

"Number Seven already said that only those who have been in this world for less than a week can enter this secret realm. Seven days—how strong can they possibly be?"

"That thing is beyond what we can obtain at this stage. Do you think someone who's never even seen a rare artifact would have anything of low quality?"

"What if we're not in the same location after we leave?"

"The teleportation from the secret realm won't land too far. Twenty people can't even take down two?"

Standing at the edge of the crowd, He Lin felt a surge of unease wash over her as she heard these words. She didn't know Su Mu, but she had seen the corpses of monsters killed with a single blow... leopards, hyenas, wild dogs—each bearing the piercing wounds inflicted by the same weapon. If those wounds were inflicted by this man... Her talents had returned, her senses were back; she could feel the aura emanating from the man standing not far away... steady, unfathomable, like a stagnant pool. She didn't want to fight.

"What if he's the one outside killing the monster?" He Lin's voice wasn't loud, but it was loud enough for Zhang Peng to hear.

Zhang Peng glanced at her. There was no hesitation, no weighing of options in his eyes, only a resolute and unquestionable greed.

"Number Seven said that only those who have been in this world for less than a week can enter this secret realm." Zhang Peng's voice was low but steady. "Seven days, one person couldn't possibly grow to that level. Twenty people, couldn't they handle two?"

He Lin's lips moved as if she wanted to say something, but ultimately she didn't. Zhang Peng didn't look at her again. His gaze passed through the crowd and landed on Su Mu's backpack.

Cracks began to appear at the edges of the space.

It wasn't that the wall had cracked; rather, the entire space felt like a crumpled piece of paper, folded inwards from the edges. Light shone through the cracks... a hazy, grayish light, carrying the gloom unique to zoos. The light swallowed everything.

The moment the feeling of weightlessness subsided, Su Mu's feet touched solid ground.

The air smelled of blood, the stench of wild animals, and the stench of decaying plants... The zoo, they're back. He quickly glanced around.

Artificial rockery, a hippopotamus pond, and that dirt road that brown bears have traversed countless times. And less than three meters behind him, twenty people were emerging from the light, one after another, like bubbles rising from water.

Zhang Peng's team.

They were all in the same area. Everyone paused for a moment, stunned.

They had considered this possibility, but "possibility" and "reality" are two different things. When twenty people were actually standing in the same open space, when the man with the backpack was less than ten meters away, when the word "take action" changed from a plan to an action to be carried out in the next second... Zhao Qiang's Adam's apple bobbed, and Zhao Gang's shield slid from his back to his left arm.

He Lin stood at the edge of the crowd, her fingers glowing slightly; her talent had restored her perception abilities.

Her gaze swept quickly between Su Mu and Lin Yuwei, her mind racing. If this person had no connection to those monster corpses, if they had been teleported to different locations, it could be explained as... coincidence, or luck. But now, all twenty-one people were in the same spot, perfectly aligned.

Those monster corpses cleared away along the way, those piercing wounds that killed instantly—they had nothing to do with this person? She didn't believe it. Of course, there was another possibility... the secret realm's teleportation rules were to send everyone to the same landing point. But she thought that possibility was unlikely.

Regardless, she would first use her talent to sense the area. Her perception range already covered several hundred meters around, and the man's aura was less than ten meters ahead. He Lin took a deep breath, preparing to focus her perception and lock onto Su Mu...

"boom......!"

It wasn't a gunshot, nor an explosion, but a deafening roar she had never heard before. It was as if something had crashed down from the sky, smashed into the ground, into her ears, and into her brain. The ground trembled, gravel bounced across the surface, and even the air seemed to vibrate.

Then came the wind. Not ordinary wind, but the oppressive gale, carrying the stench of blood, the scent of wild beasts, the distinctive flapping of the wings of some enormous creature. Branches snapped, leaves were whipped up, pebbles rolled across the ground, and a person's body felt as light as a piece of paper in the face of this gale.

Zhao Qiang was thrown into the air.

His body tumbled halfway through the air, crashed into a tree, slid down, and fell to the ground. Zhao Gang's shield was overturned by the wind, and he was pulled back seven or eight steps. Zhang Peng's iron cage flew out of his hand, and the injured pangolin rolled out of the cage, tumbling several times on the ground.

He Lin was pushed backward by the wind and staggered several steps. The faint light on her fingers went out, and she fell to the ground.

Lin Yuwei was also blown away. Her cloak fluttered in the wind, and she tumbled twice in the air like a leaf before crashing into the bushes a dozen meters away.

The wind stopped.

Everyone was thrown into the air.

Twenty-one people lay sprawled on the ground, in the trees, and in the bushes. Except for one person. Su Mu stood still. His feet seemed nailed to the ground, his body completely still, not even the hem of his clothes was blown by the wind... An invisible shield created a quiet space around him, the gale swept past his sides without touching a single hair on his head.

Su Mu paid no attention to the people who had been thrown into the air. His gaze was fixed on a spot twenty or thirty meters ahead.

At this moment, the cheeky brown bear we had seen earlier was squatting at the foot of the artificial hill. It was even larger than before, its long, dark brown fur fluttering in the wind like a burning black flame.

It was holding something in its arms... an egg, bigger than an adult's head, dark gold in color, with fine patterns covering its surface.

There was a hole in the eggshell, a fist-sized hole with jagged edges. Dark golden liquid flowed out of the hole and dripped down the brown bear's forepaw.

The brown bear's mouth and whiskers were covered in that liquid, and it was licking its lips with its tongue, its eyes narrowed to slits. In its other forepaw, it held half an eggshell, the edges of which were covered with a viscous liquid like egg yolk, gleaming golden in the sunlight.

Above its head, a large golden bird was circling.